Hi guys. I know I'm "new" here, but I've been lurking for a few months. I noticed a good amount of software workstation type posts in this forum, most of it windows centric, with a bit of mac, so I thought I'd throw out some more things. Last night, I got a chance to check out the agnula livecd version, and I was pretty impressed. A livecd is like a demo of an os that doesn't install something to the hard drive, so you can check out programs, etc w\o overwriting, partitioning, or needing another computer. It *does* require a bit more ram(since its basically a big ram disk), but from the specs I've seen floating around here, people shouldn't have too much trouble.
I was *very* impressed with how far these distributions have come. They include some very nice synths, with some very impressive sounds, rivaling some I've heard in $500-$1000 keyboards. Are they on par with a motif es or gigastudio? Probably not. I haven't really delved into all these have to offer, but one thing that did impress me a lot was JACK, an audio transport server. When a jack enabled program starts up, it registers inputs and outputs. This allows you to connect inputs and outputs using a virtual patch bay. Its pretty cool, and probably a lot like reWire, which I haven't used.
Now, I know you're asking, what's so different about these distributions vs. regular linux? Well, each of these distros is tuned for audio. That includes the realtime patches, etc. I won't go into a ton of details, but the home pages provide more information.
Why am I providing these links? Well, like I said before, I've seen very little linux information on the boards. I don't have a lot of money, so I like free software. (Truthfully, the fervent software distro is pay, but its not that expensive. I'll pay to support things I like. And *no*, I *don't* pirate things. ) These distros each come with a large variety of software that is in varying stages of readiness. The fervent distro has very stable releases, and agnula was very usable. I spent a good bit of time with Hydrogen, a drum machine, and was very impressed. They include pretty much everything you'd need to do audio, from synths, vsti's, plugins, drum machines, sequencers, editors, to other applications, such as video editors, broadcasting tools, VJ & DJ tools, and more, depending on the distro.

If you've never used linux before, I encourage you to check out some articles:
Ardour, a DAW: [link]http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7796[\link]
Softsynth roundup, slightly old:
[link]http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6320[\link]
Linux [link]MIDI:http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8050 [\link] <- has links to the other parts of the article at the end.

Here's the distros that I recommend. If you can't find the livecd links and don't want to deal with repartitioning or installing on a second machine, let me know, and I'll post the current livecd links.
[link]http://www.dynebolic.org/[/link]
[link]http://www.agnula.org/[\link]
[link]http://www.ferventsoftware.com/[\link]

Thank you guys for the information that you have all shared, its been an informative few months for me.
Allan

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"I considered laser eye surgery.... but it couldn't be used offensively."
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